It’s what’s inside that counts
The canopy ripped and Freja plummeted, landing on the soft mattress.
‘Well, hello,’ said Blah Woman, smiling, her face now filled with genuine delight.
Freja scrabbled around, untangling herself from the velvet. She sprang to her feet and was horrified to see the pink box sitting on the floor between herself and the woman.
‘Ooh! Wonderful!’ The woman rubbed her hands like a marmot who had just discovered a clump of mushrooms.
Freja shook with fear and anger. ‘You are a bad person,’ she said. ‘You have deceived everyone. Except for me. I know exactly who you are. You’re Monsieur de la Fontaine, the Frenchman who wanted to buy all of the Margrit Milk from Herr Berna’s factory. You stuffed your clothes with pillows and stuck that silly moustache onto your face and spoke with a French accent. A very good French accent.’
‘Why, thank you,’ smirked the woman.
Freja frowned. ‘You’re also the thief who stole the newly delivered blocks of Margrit Milk chocolate from Schokoladen-Fantasie. You’re the cat burglar in the puffy ski gear who broke into Café Schokolade-Schokolade and stole all the Margrit Milk creations. You’re the woman with the flaming red hair who sat in Leckerbissen without eating her gâteau or drinking her hot chocolate.’ Freja stopped, tugged her ear, then continued as more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. ‘Because you weren’t there to eat chocolate . . . You were there to look around, to find a spot where you might break in during the night, so you could steal all the Margrit Milk!’
The woman sighed. ‘Yes, but that annoying woman, Frau Niederhauser, messed up my plans by fitting those ridiculous wooden shutters. She made it impossible for me to break in.’
‘So you had to work out another way to get the Margrit Milk chocolate,’ said Freja. ‘Which is when you started buying huge amounts of chocolate. You’re the woman in the cream fur coat who wanted to buy all of the Margrit Milk creations in Leckerbissen and . . . and . . .’ Freja shuddered. ‘You’re the ninja who mugged Herr Basil! So nasty! And you’re the old Swiss woman who bought all the chocolate fob watches.’
The woman nodded, stepped forward and picked up the pink box. ‘And now, I am the woman who has stolen the Margrit Milk family from Leckerbissen’s chocolate doll’s house.’ She raised one eyebrow and added, ‘Twice!’
Freja gasped, suddenly understanding. ‘Of course! Yesterday, when you were disguised as the red-haired lady and bumped into the doll’s house.’ She sniffed. ‘And now.’
The woman lifted the lid on the pink box. She peered inside, her eyes bulging with greed.
‘But why?’ whispered Freja. ‘Why did you steal all that chocolate? And why was it always Margrit Milk?’
The woman sat the box on the table. She took out the chocolate father and held him in the air, away from her face and body.
‘You don’t even like chocolate, do you?’ asked Freja.
The woman rolled her eyes. Taking the chocolate father by the head in one hand and the feet in the other, she snapped him in half.
‘No!’ shouted Freja.
But the woman ignored her. Crushing the chocolate father in her hands, she sifted the shards through her fingers, until all that remained of him was a pile of chocolate crumbs on the floor. Then she repeated the process with the chocolate mother and the three chocolate children.
The destruction complete, the woman snapped, ‘It’s not there!’
Freja looked at the mess on the floor and frowned. Oddly, the swan family flapped through her mind once more.
And then, suddenly, Freja understood!
The swans had mugged Tobias, not because they were angry, but to get what was inside his pocket — the sandwich.
Freja ran her eyes back and forth across the chocolate crumbs once more. She slapped her forehead as the truth now became clear.
‘You don’t want the chocolate!’ cried Freja. ‘You’re after something that’s inside the chocolate! That’s why the Margrit Milk that you stole from Schokoladen-Fantasie was melted and spread thinly over the log in the forest. And why you bought the chocolate fob watches and broke them into tiny pieces. But you didn’t want the chocolate buttons or the chocolate feathers because they were too small for anything to be hidden inside. And that’s why you bumped Herr Basil’s beautiful chocolate gâteau to the floor. It wasn’t an accident! You needed to break it apart to see if there was something inside.’ Freja stopped to catch her breath. ‘But what? What were you hoping to find inside the Margrit Milk?’
The woman’s cheeks reddened. Her mouth turned down at the sides. Her hands no longer fidgeted and fussed like a marmot’s, but formed two tight fists. So tight that the knuckles turned white.
‘There’s nothing inside,’ said Freja, her words now racing to keep up with her thoughts. ‘Margrit Milk chocolate is pure and smooth — except for the funny little pieces that are dropped into the vats from time to time and end up in Leckerbissen’s Museum of Hidden Trash and Treasure. But that’s just worthless stuff like buttons and pencils and spoons and keys and —’
‘KEYS?!’ the woman shrieked. She dived at Freja, grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘What keys?’
Freja whimpered, ‘It was just one little key. I found it yesterday when I was making chocolate curls and —’ She stopped, terrified by the greed in the woman’s eyes.
The woman squeezed Freja’s shoulders, leaned in close and hissed, ‘Where is the key now?’
Freja blinked and the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. She said, ‘You’re Jane, aren’t you? And the key is Lady P’s — the one that will open Lord P’s safety deposit box.’
‘Where is my key?’ snarled Jane. Her bony fingers dug into Freja’s flesh.
Freja winced. ‘But it’s Lady P’s key, not yours.’
Jane shouted, ‘WHERE IS MY KEY?!’ and shook Freja so violently that she bit her tongue.
Freja tasted blood. She felt dizzy and scared, but she would not be a part of the betrayal of Lady P. ‘I’m not telling,’ she whispered. ‘Because it’s Lady P’s key, not yours.’
Jane’s face turned purple with rage. ‘I have worked too hard and overcome too many obstacles to allow a silly little girl to foil my plans. I snatched the key from Lady Pembleton’s neck, then pushed her down the mountain so that she would be out of my way, but that stupid, annoying woman survived! So I fled back to Lucerne and hid overnight in a place where I thought no-one would come looking for me — a chocolate factory.’
‘Berna Schokolade,’ Freja murmured.
‘All I had to do,’ growled Jane, ‘was wait out the night, catch the morning train to Zurich, go to Barclay’s Bank, open safety deposit box 1054A and take what was inside. Then I would be rich! Rich! Rich! Rich for the rest of my life.’
‘But you dropped the key,’ whispered Freja.
Jane let go of Freja’s shoulders and threw her hands in the air. ‘So foolish of me,’ she snorted. ‘I took the key from my pocket in the wee hours of the morning. I held it before my face and laughed. I laughed at the idea that I was about to be rich. I laughed and laughed and laughed with joy. I laughed so hard that I stumbled and dropped the key and it fell —’
‘Into the vat of Margrit Milk chocolate,’ finished Freja.
‘I tried to fish it out, but the vat was deep. I was covered in melted chocolate and the sun was rising and I had to flee before anyone saw me there! But I did not give up. I have spent the last week searching, sneaking, burgling, stealing, buying, looking through every piece of Margrit Milk chocolate from that wretched batch to find the key that will make me rich.’ Jane took a deep breath, then bellowed, ‘So you can understand that I am not about to let one silly little girl get in my way!’
Grabbing Freja by the shoulders once more, Jane shoved her to the open window and held her out over the sill.
Freja’s body went limp with terror. Her gaze slipped down to the terrace three storeys below. Madame Belmont’s trampoline was still there! But it looked so small. And was it too far over to the right anyway? It was hard to tell from this height — when your heart was racing, your vision blurring and your lunch about to resurface.
Jane pushed Freja’s upper body a little further from the turret and snarled, ‘Last chance, little girl. Where is my key?’
Freja took one final glance at the tiny trampoline far, far below. Then, turning back to Jane, she said, in a voice loud and clear, ‘It’s not your key.’
Freja closed her eyes and felt Jane let go of her shoulders. Her body fell backward, but at the same time something rough and sharp closed around her ankle. She was being dragged back into the room! Her head hit the floor and she opened her eyes to see Finnegan pulling the fluffy marmot slipper from her foot. At the same time, from the corner of her eye, she saw Jane tottering, waving her arms wildly in the air, then disappearing — head, then shoulders, then body and legs and feet.
‘Boofle!’ said Finnegan through a mouthful of fluff. He blinked at Freja, leapt onto the bed and shook the slipper from side to side to kill it.
Freja crawled to the window, stood up, took a deep, fortifying breath and looked down. There, spread out on the trampoline, lay Jane. Her leg was twisted at a strange angle and she moaned. She would not be able to slip away unnoticed this time!
Freja shuddered, relieved that it wasn’t her on the trampoline.
Turning around, she walked to the bed and watched as the dog ripped her brand-new marmot slipper to shreds.
‘Good puppy,’ she said, much to Finnegan’s surprise. ‘Wonderful, marvellous puppy.’